Thought for the month: “"Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground." Anonymous

CLIMATE CHANGE

Public Outrage Intensifies Over Climate Inaction: People rallied in 2013 to send a strong message about climate inaction: Enough is enough. Thousands took to the streets, from Washington D.C. to San Francisco, urging policymakers to end the inertia that has built-up over climate policy, to help with climate threats such as Superstorm Sandy, and to demand that President Obama reject the Keystone XL pipeline. They chained themselves to pipeline equipment and stormed government agencies and fossil-fuel company headquarters. Indigenous groups rose up against the tar sands. Scientists became more vocal, issuing report after report in the lead-up to December's international climate talks asking global leaders to dramatically curb emissions. Educators took a stance: 26 states wrote new science standards that for the first time require K-12 students learn about human-driven climate change. A collection of 33 congressmen and women formed the Safe Climate Caucus, swearing to talk about climate change on the House floor at least once every day. http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20131230/outrage-over-climate-inaction-reaches-fever-pitch-2013

Projected Temp Rise at Alarming 4C: Temperature rises resulting from unchecked climate change will be at the severe end of those projected, according to a recent scientific study published in the journal Nature. Unless greenhouse-gas emissions are cut, the planet will heat up by a minimum of 4C by 2100, twice the level the world's governments deem dangerous. The research indicates that fewer clouds form as the planet warms, meaning less sunlight is reflected back into space, driving temperatures up further still. According to Professor Steven Sherwood, at the Univ. of New South Wales: "This study breaks new ground twice: first by identifying what is controlling the cloud changes and second by strongly discounting the lowest estimates of future global warming in favor of the higher and more damaging estimates." The research is a "big advance" that halves the uncertainty about how much warming is caused by rises in carbon emissions, according to scientists commenting on the study. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/31/planet-will-warm-4c-2100-climate As Sea Ice Shrinks, Blindered Companies Miss Big Picture: Think the melting of the Arctic is really bad news? You'd be in good company if you were talking to scientists. But talk to shipping and energy companies and you'll hear that the vanishing ice is a windfall, not a warning. Commercial freighters are beginning to transit the no longer ice-covered Arctic waters, and what's their most common cargo? Fossil fuels, particularly diesel fuel. At the same time, energy companies are planning to exploit the estimated 90 billion barrels of oil and 1.7 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas in Arctic. Can you say irony? It's the burning of fossil fuels that has dramatically shrunk Arctic sea ice to lows unseen in the past millennium. Arctic warming alters weather patterns far from the region and also accelerates sea level rise globally with the melting of the massive Greenland ice sheet. It may be too late to prevent an ice-free Arctic in the summertime, but there's still time to avoid the worst consequences of rising temperatures by leaving fossil fuels underground and rapidly transitioning to an energy economy centered on renewables. http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2013/highlights42 A scientific paper published this month, and which should stop all Arctic drilling now and be required reading for energy company CEOs, is Un-burnable Oil: An Examination of Oil Resource Utilisation in a Decarbonised Energy System. The authors warn of a large “disconnect” between developing new areas of exploration such as the Arctic and “pledges to restrict temperature rises to two degrees Celsius. The continued licensing of new areas for oil exploration is only consistent with declared intentions to limit CO2 emissions and climate change if the majority of fields that are discovered remain undeveloped, which fatally undermines the economic rationale for their discovery in the first place.” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151300966X Washington Cities Want Carbon-Pricing: On December 6, the mayors of Mercer Island, Kirkland, Issaquah, Shoreline, Snoqualmie, Sammamish, Seattle, and Tukwila joined with King County to issue a joint letter calling for bold state climate action. They believe a market-based approach to reducing GHG pollution—whether a cap-and-trade program as in California or a carbon tax as in British Columbia––should be at the heart of the state’s package of climate actions. http://daily.sightline.org/2013/12/19/cities-call-for-carbon-pricing-in-washington/Climate Science in Haiku: Greg Johnson, an oceanographer with the NOAA, was inspired to turn dense science into elegant poetry last month while reading through the colossal Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Johnson wrote 19 haiku that refine the report’s key findings into digestible nuggets of poetry. http://news.yahoo.com/keeping-simple-scientist-uses-haiku-explain-climate-change-012137912.html

RENEWABLE ENERGY

13 Clean Energy Milestones: Using salt to produce solar power when the sun goes down; electric car batteries that power buildings; fresh water via energy-efficient harnessing of ocean waves; offshore wind turbines that float, and more. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/18/3060131/13-clean-energy-breakthroughs-2013-2/# Massive Solar Plan for Minnesota Wins Bid Over Gas: Minnesota soon could see at least a sevenfold expansion of solar power. In an unprecedented ruling, a judge reviewing whether Xcel Energy should invest in new natural gas generators vs. large solar power arrays concluded that solar is a better deal. If the finding by Judge Eric Lipman is upheld by the state Public Utilities Commission, about 20 large solar power arrays will be built on sites across Xcel’s service area. http://www.startribune.com/business/238322571.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

FOSSIL FUEL-ISH

Oil Tanker Traffic in Washington Waters Could Increase 7x:“Whenever there is a huge spill of solar energy, it's just called a nice day.” And when it's a huge spill of oil? That's called a disaster and that's what we may looking at if even more oil tankers pass through Washington state waters. Tanker traffic could increase almost sevenfold under a proposal by Kinder Morgan Canada to expand the amount of crude it sends to the Pacific Coast. The company has filed a formal application with Canadian regulators to expand its Trans Mountain pipeline that carries crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands to the Vancouver, B.C. area. Under the proposal, up to 34 tankers a month would be loaded with oil at a terminal outside Vancouver, then generally travel through Haro Strait east of San Juan Island and the Strait of Juan de Fuca for export to markets in Asia and the U.S. That’s up from about five tankers a month. http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/12/29/2968943/oil-tanker-traffic-likely-to-increase.html

DEPT. OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Germany Leads Way on Renewables: Germany is going to show us all how to switch to renew­ables. Having vowed to shut down its nuclear power plants by 2022, the country plans to demonstrate how it will generate 35% of its electricity (18% of its total energy) from renewables. Windmills sprout across the country and solar arrays on rooftops and town halls are everywhere. More than 100 communities have set targets to go com­pletely renewable. Through energy cooperatives in which the buy-in is as low as a few hundred euros, whole villages can invest in a wind park or an anaerobic digester (which makes natural gas from organic waste). Unlike the U.S., where only about 2% of all wind ca­pacity is community-owned, in Germany, half of all wind projects are owned by small-scale investors and farmers. Thanks to a combination of tax policy and guaranteed grid access — investors don’t have to negotiate to deliver their power to the grid, unlike in the U.S. — renewables are a solid investment.

Vancouver Goes for "Greenest City": Cities are responsible for two-thirds of human energy use and 70% of greenhouse gas emissions. They consume vast quanti­ties of water, and produce enormous amounts of waste — all on just 2% of the world’s surface area. Through its Greenest City 2020 initiative, Vancouver B.C. has developed a 10-point plan to tackle everything from jobs and investment to buildings, transportation, waste and even food — all to emerge as the world’s most sus­tainable city. Vancouver is designing itself a smart future by borrowing ideas and technology from cities the world over. Its Olympic Village was heated by tapping waste heat emitted from sewage pipes; the technology, which involves wrapping sewage pipe with a coil that collects the heat, now sup­plies 70% of the annual energy demand in the neighborhood that encompasses the village. The program, known as a Neighborhood Energy Utility, has already lowered local greenhouse emissions from build­ings by 74% (surpassing expectations of a 62% average annual reduction). Vancouver also updated its mass transit to accommodate bicycles and built urban bike lanes separate from the streets. Today, residents make 40% of their trips in the city on foot, bike or public transportation (the goal is two-thirds of all trips by 2040). To help conserve water, the city now requires water meters on all new residential water services. And Vancouver has adopted the greenest building code in North America. Transition Fidalgo & Friends Growing a resilient community with a reduced reliance on fossil fuelstransitionfidalgo.org